Fitness squares added to affordable housing community in Linyi

Under the autumn sun, residents of Yijing Jinheyuan, an affordable housing community in Liuqing subdistrict of Lanshan district, Linyi, East China's Shandong province, now stretch, exercise and play with their children on two new fitness squares — an amenity the community never had.

Built without planned exercise space and with no land available for expansion, the compact compound had long left elderly residents and children without a place outdoors. Repeated requests from residents made fitness facilities their most concentrated demand. The Shuiyun community, which administers the compound, registered each request through grid worker visits, surveyed the site repeatedly, and finally fitted two small squares into idle low-lying plots on the north and south sides — about 50 square meters and 60 square meters respectively, 110 square meters in all.

After backfilling, leveling and hardening the plots to remove water-logging hazards, the community approached the district education and sports bureau and obtained 15 pieces of standard public fitness equipment — air walkers, waist twisters, tai chi wheels, upper-body trainers and seesaws — covering both elderly exercise and children's play. The whole project ran on the "small livelihood matters" mechanism from demand registration to installation.

"Before, we had to walk out of the compound to find a park to exercise," said an elderly resident. "Now it is right downstairs — the community has done something on our hearts." The squares have also become new social hubs where neighbors gather at dusk, and the community said it will keep collecting residents' demands through grid visits.

Editor：韩蒙蒙